Elly Goetz

About

I am a fifth year PhD candidate in the Hull lab in the Earth and Planetary Sciences department at Yale University. 

My research focuses on the biology of benthic foraminifera, a group of single-celled organisms with a long, high-resolution fossil record. My core interests lie in the understudied and unusual aspects of foraminiferal life histories, including their atypical genome dynamics and the ecological implications of foraminiferal dormancy.

My recent paper, “Foraminifera as indicators of species invasion: Ammonia confertitesta in Long Island Sound”, published in Science Advances, examines the fossil record of foraminifera in Long Island Sound to trace the relationship between the region's long history of anthropogenic impacts and the invasion of the non-native Ammonia confertitesta. 

I earned a BA from Smith College in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation. While at Smith, I studied foraminiferal life cycles and genomes in the Katz lab.